I've got a lot of bacon ends and pieces collecting in my freezer that I've been primarily using to flavor beans. I got instead to thinking about making a bacon/beef burger. I know I can find a million recipes online but I trust yous guys and was hoping to know if someone had a tried and true ratio or recipe they would share. I was thinking about either 50/50 bacon/chuck or bacon/brisket or possible thirds bacon/chuck/brisket.

I sell a 50-50 bacon ends & 85% lean beef trim, generally a mostly front shoulder box. I'll grind it once, put it in the mixer and add a little fine-grind black pepper & a hair of dried minced garlic to wake it up, mix it, then back through the fine plate on the grinder. It tends to move pretty well and the customers like it.

Dingo wrote:For a spin on the bacon burger...I grind half of my bacon ends (coarse) and then fry them crispy and chill before adding to the burger mix. Comes out really nice

Thanks for the input Dingo, I was going to do a liver and bacon sausage a couple weeks back and knew I had to precook the bacon to get that bacon flavor, but wasn't sure how it would come out. Will give it a go soon.

JerBear wrote: I know I can find a million recipes online but I trust yous guys and was hoping to know if someone had a tried and true ratio or recipe they would share. I was thinking about either 50/50 bacon/chuck or bacon/brisket or possible thirds bacon/chuck/brisket.

Thoughts?

26 lbs beef
4 lbs bacon

(I use my trim up from my cold smoked bacon, created a problem and now just cold smoke thick pieces from the picnic -- I will pull the original recipe I used at the shop later -- Summer time I would make 1200 lbs a week )

There's a local restaurant famous for their bacon burgers which is a 50/50 blend but the caveat is that it has to be ordered well done because of the bacon. Precooking it would alleviate that and you could have the bacon in there but still get a rare of medium burger. Not a bad idea...still wondering about the flavor differences between the cooked bacon added to the mix, would you also add the rendered fat?

I'd be inclined to think not much more than white pepper or very fine black pepper, and a bit of sugar, and a bunch of salt, would give the best flavour to the patty. Otherwise you could run the risk of burying the flavours or over-mingling them.

Dogfish wrote:I'd be inclined to think not much more than white pepper or very fine black pepper, and a bit of sugar, and a bunch of salt, would give the best flavour to the patty. Otherwise you could run the risk of burying the flavours or over-mingling them.

Black pepper rather than white -- use 32 mesh, no sugar as one normally incorporates it in the bacon cure .

Salt is the big one -- normally on fresh sausage I do 9gm per kg (26 lbs = 110gm salt) with this mix I am down to 40gm for 26 lbs (1.5gm per kg)